“Rejection, I have found, can be the only antidote to delusion.” – Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Dinner for One: How Cooking in Paris Saved Me by Sutanya Dacres
Nonfiction / Memoir / Cooking.
When Sutanya Dacres married her French boyfriend and moved to Paris at twenty-seven, she felt like she was living out her very own Nora Ephron romantic comedy. Jamaican-born and Bronx-raised, she had never dreamed she herself could be one of those American women in Paris she admired from afar via their blogs, until she met the man of her dreams one night in Manhattan. A couple of years later, she married her Frenchman and moved to Paris, embarking on her own “happily-ever-after.” But when her marriage abruptly ended, the fairy tale came crashing down around her.
Reeling from her sudden divorce and the cracked facade of that picture-perfect expat life, Sutanya grew determined to mend her broken heart and learn to love herself again. She began by cooking dinner for one in her Montmartre kitchen. Along the way, she builds Parisienne friendships, learns how to date in French, and examines what it means to be a Black American woman in Paris—all while adopting the French principle of pleasure, especially when it comes to good food, and exploring what the concept of self-care really means.
Brimming with charm, humor, and hard-won wisdom, Sutanya’s story takes you on an adventure through love, loss, and finding where you truly belong, even when it doesn’t look quite how you expected.
Description from Goodreads.
“A new take on self-care, Sutanya’s journey will take lucky readers on an intercontinental voyage in food, love, loss, and rediscovery in her debut memoir.” – Good Morning America
“Dacres is at her best when indulging readers in her culinary experiences—particularly the cathartic act of cooking solo that, post-divorce, allows her to heal… Those craving a hopeful comeback story will find much to savor.” – Publishers Weekly
“Dacres—whose podcast that shares this book’s title is now in its fourth season—writes honestly about identity and the pressures we put on ourselves to fit in. Sharing the ways she creates a home in Paris that fits who she truly is, one meal at a time, her work speaks directly to readers.” – Booklist
The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi
Fiction / Fantasy.
Red is the blood of the elite, of magic, of control.
Blue is the blood of the poor, of workers, of the resistance.
Clear is the blood of the slaves, of the crushed, of the invisible.
Sylah dreams of days growing up in the resistance, being told she would spark a revolution that would free the empire from the red-blooded ruling classes’ tyranny. That spark was extinguished the day she watched her family murdered before her eyes.
Anoor has been told she’s nothing, no one, a disappointment, by the only person who matters: her mother, the most powerful ruler in the empire. But when Sylah and Anoor meet, a fire burns between them that could consume the kingdom—and their hearts.
Hassa moves through the world unseen by upper classes, so she knows what it means to be invisible. But invisibility has its uses: It can hide the most dangerous of secrets, secrets that can reignite a revolution. And when she joins forces with Sylah and Anoor, together these grains of sand will become a storm.
As the empire begins a set of trials of combat and skill designed to find its new leaders, the stage is set for blood to flow, power to shift, and cities to burn.
Description from Goodreads.
“A debut that reads like a masterwork, The Final Strife introduces a beautifully realized and painfully human cast against the backdrop of one of the most compelling fantasy landscapes I’ve ever read. Simply put: I love this book. It’s a true epic filled with mystery, adventure, romance, and… blood magic. Lots of blood magic.” – Amazon
“El-Arifi unfolds a complex and brutal magical world… [a] rich debut fantasy.” – BuzzFeed
“The Final Strife is a shining example of how to write a diverse, inclusive, brilliant cast… one of the best fantasies I’ve read in a long time.” – Bookstacked
Gilt by Jamie Brenner
Fiction.
One perfect diamond is all it takes to divide a family. Could one summer be enough to fix it?
The Pavlin family built an empire on love. As the first jewelers to sell diamond rings exclusively for proposals, they started a tradition that has defined engagements ever since. But when an ill-fated publicity stunt pits the three Pavlin sisters against one another for a famous family jewel, their bond is broken. No ordinary diamond ring, the Electric Rose splinters the sisters, leaving one unlucky in love, one escaping to the shores of Cape Cod, and the other, ultimately, dead.
Now, over a decade later, Gemma Maybrook is still reconciling the reality of her mother’s death. Left orphaned and cast out by her family after the tragic accident, Gemma is ready to reclaim what should have been hers: the Electric Rose. And, as a budding jewelry designer in her own right, Gemma isn’t just planning on recovering her mother’s lost memento, she’s coming back for everything. From Manhattan’s tony Fifth Avenue to the vibrant sands of Provincetown, Gilt follows the Pavlin women as they are forced to confront the mistakes of the past if they have any hope of finding love and happiness of their own.
Description from Goodreads.
“[A] great summer beach read.” – Red Carpet Crash
“Brenner shines in this tale about the women behind a Manhattan jewelry empire… Brenner shows great skill at describing fine jewelry and the workings of the industry, and makes all of her characters engaging. This beach read sparkles like a two-carat diamond.” – Publishers Weekly
Honey & Spice by Bolu Babalola
Fiction / Romance.
Sharp-tongued (and secretly soft-hearted) Kiki Banjo has just made a huge mistake. An expert in relationship-evasion and the host of the popular student radio show, Brown Sugar, she’s made it her mission to make sure the women of the Afro-Caribbean Society at Whitewell University do not fall into the mess of “situationships”, players, and heartbreak. But when the Queen of the Unbothered kisses Malakai Korede, the guy she just publicly denounced as “The Wastemen of Whitewell” in front of every Blackwellian on campus, she finds her show and her reputation on the brink.
They’re soon embroiled in a fake relationship to try and salvage their reputations and save their futures. Kiki has never surrendered her heart before and a player like Malakai, no matter how charming he is or how incredible their connection is, won’t be the one to change that.
After surprisingly entertaining study sessions and intimate late-night talks at old-fashioned diners force Kiki to look beyond her own presumptions, is she ready to open herself up to something deeper?
A side-splittingly funny and sparkling debut novel, Honey & Spice is full of delicious tension and romantic intrigue that will make you weak at the knees.
Description from Goodreads.
“A vibrant debut novel… Babalola is incisively funny, capturing the kick and sweetness of her title with her words.” – Entertainment Weekly
“Clever, confident Kiki is a romantic heroine for the ages, while the witty repartée and pop culture passion between these young lovers make for a vivacious romp.” – Esquire
“Babalola’s hilarious romance debut will have you laughing out loud and reconsidering first impressions.” – BuzzFeed
The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager ★
Fiction / suspense / Mystery.
Casey Fletcher, a recently widowed actress trying to escape a streak of bad press, has retreated to the peace and quiet of her family’s lake house in Vermont. Armed with a pair of binoculars and several bottles of liquor, she passes the time watching Tom and Katherine Royce, the glamorous couple who live in the house across the lake. They make for good viewing—a tech innovator, Tom is rich; and a former model, Katherine is gorgeous.
One day on the lake, Casey saves Katherine from drowning, and the two strike up a budding friendship. But the more they get to know each other—and the longer Casey watches—it becomes clear that Katherine and Tom’s marriage is not as perfect and placid as it appears. When Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey becomes consumed with finding out what happened to her. In the process, she uncovers eerie, darker truths that turn a tale of voyeurism and suspicion into a story of guilt, obsession and how looks can be very deceiving.
With his trademark blend of sharp characters, psychological suspense, and gasp-worthy surprises, Riley Sager’s The House Across the Lake unveils more than one twist that will shock readers until the very last page.
Description from Goodreads.
“Sager’s best plot twist yet.” – People
“Sager offers consistent twists and turns—including one very surprising one—that’ll keep you flipping pages until the end.” – New Jersey Monthly
“The House Across the Lake reads like a psychological thriller version of The Great Gatsby, featuring binoculars for more accurate across-the-lake spying, smaller gatherings for a shorter list of suspects, and a truly bat**** twist for more satisfying consumption. So basically The Great Gatsby, but better. I know, them’s fightin words.” – CrimeReads
“Go into the book blind for a full experience. The clues are definitely there for you to piece together but I was still surprised. You will be questioning everyone and everything, making this book such a fun read.” – Mystery & Suspense
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong
Nonfiction / Science.
The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world. This book welcomes us into a previously unfathomable dimension–the world as it is truly perceived by other animals.
We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth’s magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and humans that wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile’s scaly face is as sensitive as a lover’s fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries which lie unsolved.
In An Immense World, author and acclaimed science journalist Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. Because in order to understand our world we don’t need to travel to other places; we need to see through other eyes.
Description from Goodreads.
“Yong’s scientific curiosity and concern for the natural world are contagious. This is ‘sense’-ational reading.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“An ingenious account of how living organisms perceive the world… One of the year’s best popular natural histories.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“…eye-opening… He’s a strong writer and makes a convincing case against seeing the world as only humans do: ‘By giving in to our preconceptions, we miss what might be right in front of us. And sometimes what we miss is breathtaking.’ This is science writing at its best.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh ★
Fiction / Historical Fiction / Fantasy.
Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, never knew his mother; his father told him she died in childbirth. One of life’s few consolations for Marek is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina, who suckled him as a baby, as she did so many of the village’s children. Ina’s gifts extend beyond childcare: she possesses a unique ability to communicate with the natural world. Her gift often brings her the transmission of sacred knowledge on levels far beyond those available to other villagers, however religious they might be. For some people, Ina’s home in the woods outside of the village is a place to fear and to avoid, a godless place.
Among their number is Father Barnabas, the town priest and lackey for the depraved lord and governor, Villiam, whose hilltop manor contains a secret embarrassment of riches. The people’s desperate need to believe that there are powers that be who have their best interests at heart is put to a cruel test by Villiam and the priest, especially in this year of record drought and famine. But when fate brings Marek into violent proximity to the lord’s family, new and occult forces upset the old order. By year’s end, the veil between blindness and sight, life and death, the natural world and the spirit world, civility and savagery, will prove to be very thin indeed.
Description from Goodreads.
“The author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, EW‘s pick for the best book of 2018, turns her inimitable lens to a medieval fiefdom ruled by deeply tribal ideas of class, family, and faith. The result reads like a cracked fairy tale, both familiar and fantastically strange.” – Entertainment Weekly
“The edgy novelist’s new book imagines a wholly realistic medieval village rife with plagues and schemes and dastardly characters. She has crafted a trenchant allegory of life in these United States over the past several years, not coincidentally also filled with plagues and schemes and dastardly leaders. Moshfegh makes the same old story new by setting it in the past, wielding her pen like an Arcimboldian brush to sketch in the mechanics of corruption.” – Los Angeles Times
“Delightfully weird and full of the richly painted characters and captivating story that makes Moshfegh a master of her craft, this historical fiction throws readers back into Medieval times so completely, you can smell the sheep dung.” – Good Housekeeping
“Deliriously quirky medieval tale… Moshfegh brings her trademark fascination with the grotesque to depictions of the pandemic, inequality, and governmental corruption, making them feel both uncanny and all too familiar. It’s a triumph.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
Learning to Talk: Stories by Hilary Mantel
Fiction.
In the wake of Hilary Mantel’s brilliant conclusion to her award-winning Wolf Hall trilogy, this collection of loosely autobiographical stories locates the transforming moments of a haunted childhood.
Absorbing and evocative, these drawn-from-life stories begin in the 1950s in an insular northern village “scoured by bitter winds and rough gossip tongues.” For the young narrator, the only way to survive is to get up, get on, get out. In “King Billy Is a Gentleman,” the child must come to terms with the loss of a father and the puzzle of a fading Irish heritage. “Curved Is the Line of Beauty” is a story of friendship, faith and a near-disaster in a scrap-yard. The title story sees our narrator ironing out her northern vowels with the help of an ex-actress with one lung and a Manchester accent. In “Third Floor Rising,” she watches, amazed, as her mother carves out a stylish new identity.
With a deceptively light touch, Mantel illuminates the poignant experiences of childhood that leave each of us forever changed.
Description from Goodreads.
“Mantel brings England alive, writing with detail and intellect.” – Time
“A book of her short stories is like a little sweet treat… Mantel’s narrators never tell everything they know, and that’s why they’re worth listening to, carefully.” – USA Today
“Her short stories always recognize other potential realities… Even the most straightforward of Mantel’s tales retain a faintly otherworldly air.” – Washington Post
The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark
Fiction / Suspense / Mystery.
Two women. Many aliases.
Meg Williams. Maggie Littleton. Melody Wilde. Different names for the same person, depending on the town, depending on the job. She’s a con artist who erases herself to become whoever you need her to be—a college student. A life coach. A real estate agent. Nothing about her is real. She slides alongside you and tells you exactly what you need to hear, and by the time she’s done, you’ve likely lost everything.
Kat Roberts has been waiting ten years for the woman who upended her life to return. And now that she has, Kat is determined to be the one to expose her. But as the two women grow closer, Kat’s long-held assumptions begin to crumble, leaving Kat to wonder who Meg’s true target is.
The Lies I Tell is a twisted domestic thriller that dives deep into the psyches and motivations of two women and their unwavering quest to seek justice for the past and rewrite the future.
Description from Goodreads.
“Intriguing… Clark skillfully fleshes out the strong, multifaceted characters. The story nicely mixes brisk plot points with slow burning reveals as it builds to a satisfying conclusion. Clark doesn’t disappoint.” – Publishers Weekly
“Will twist readers through an intricate, domestic thriller as the two women’s lies unravel. Perfect for fans of Kimberley Belle, Alice Feeney, and Michael Robotham.” – Library Journal
“[A] feminist revenge story that left me feeling smug and satisfied… like putting together a puzzle amid a web of lies, which brought be much joy.” – Read Between the Spines
My Greatest Save: The Brave, Barrier-Breaking Journey of a World Champion Goalkeeper by Briana Scurry with Wayne Coffey
Nonfiction / Memoir / sports.
Briana Scurry was a pioneer on the US Women’s National Team. She won gold in Atlanta in 1996, the first time women’s soccer was ever played in the Olympics. She was a key part of the fabled “99ers,” making an epic save in the decisive penalty-kick shootout in the final. Scurry captured her second Olympic gold in 2004, cementing her status as one of the premier players in the world. She was the only Black player on the team, and she was also the first player to be openly gay. It was a singularly amazing ride, one that Scurry handled with her trademark generosity and class—qualities that made her one of the most popular players ever to wear a US jersey.
But Scurry’s storybook career ended in 2010 when a knee to the head left her with severe head trauma. She was labeled “temporarily totally disabled,” and the reality was even worse. She spiraled into depression, debt, and endured such pain that she closed out her closest friends and soccer soulmates. She pawned her gold medals. She walked to the edge of a waterfall and contemplated suicide. It seemed like the only way out until Scurry made her greatest save of all.
A memoir of startling candor, My Greatest Save is a story of triumph, tragedy, and redemption from a woman who has broken through barriers her entire life.
Description from Goodreads.
“A triumphant sports memoir by one of the first African American female soccer players, an athlete who rose to fame and suffered great loss only to rise again, stronger.” – Booklist
On Rotation by Shirlene Obuobi
Fiction / Romance.
Ghanaian-American Angela Appiah has checked off all the boxes for the “Perfect Immigrant Daughter.”
– Enroll in an elite medical school
– Snag a suitable lawyer/doctor/engineer boyfriend
– Surround self with a gaggle of successful and/or loyal friends
But then it quickly all falls apart: her boyfriend dumps her, she bombs the most important exam of her medical career, and her best friend pulls away. And her parents, whose approval seems to hinge on how closely she follows the path they chose, are a lot less proud of their daughter. It’s a quarter life crisis of epic proportions.
Angie, who has always faced her problems by working “twice as hard to get half as far,” is at a loss. Suddenly, she begins to question everything: her career choice, her friendships, even why she’s attracted to men who don’t love her as much as she loves them.
And just when things couldn’t get more complicated, enter Ricky Gutierrez— brilliant, thoughtful, sexy, and most importantly, seems to see Angie for who she is instead of what she can represent.
Unfortunately, he’s also got “wasteman” practically tattooed across his forehead, and Angie’s done chasing mirages of men. Or so she thinks. For someone who’s always been in control, Angie realizes that there’s one thing she can’t plan on: matters of her heart.
Description from Goodreads.
“This effervescent story is a treat.” – Publishers Weekly
“Let me introduce you to my favorite book of 2022 so far. On Rotation by Shirlene Obuobi, is part rom-com, part coming-of-age story—a book so full of life that I badly missed Angie, Obuobi’s protagonist, the moment I finished. It’s been a rough couple of years for all of us, so scoop up this completely delightful debut for a shot of joy.” – Marie Claire
“Author Obuobi, a physician and cartoonist, is in her wheelhouse chronicling the hectic, and sometimes solitary, life of a medical student. The often witty footnotes, frequently describing medical jargon or Ghanaian traditions, add an amusing flair to Angie’s personality, but the novel’s true strength shines in its more serious moments… Guaranteed to make your heart beat faster.” – Kirkus Reviews
We Weren’t Looking to Be Found by Stephanie Kuehn
Fiction / Young Adult / Mystery.
Two young girls. Two disparate stories. One unlikely friendship…
Dani comes from the richest, most famous Black family in Texas and seems to have everything a girl could want. So why does she keep using and engaging in other self-destructive behavior?
Camila’s Colombian-American family doesn’t have much, but she knows exactly what she wants out of life and works her ass off to get it. So why does she keep failing, and why does she self-harm every time she does?
When Dani and Camila find themselves rooming together at Peach Tree Hills, a treatment facility in beautiful rural Georgia, they initially think they’ll never get along―and they’ll never get better. But then they find a mysterious music box filled with letters from a former resident of PTH, and together they set out to solve the mystery of who this girl was… and who she’s become. The investigation will bring them together, and what they find at the end might just bring them hope.
From award-winning author Stephanie Kuehn comes a breathtaking tale of friendship and healing. Both poignant and timely, We Weren’t Looking to Be Found is complex, hopeful, and heartbreaking all at once.
Description from Goodreads.
“An insightful, grounded, and compassionately messy meditation on adolescence, institutional support, and helping oneself.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“Both teens narrate in the first person, giving an intimacy and immediacy to their struggles with depression and addiction that feel authentic. This may be triggering for some teens but a lifesaver for others, as the bittersweet ending is hopeful while acknowledging that recovery is rarely straightforward.” – Booklist
